Signs - John 6:24-35

“Signs”
John 6: 24-35
Todd Buegler
August 5, 6 & 7, 2006
Lord of Life

Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, and from Jesus, the Son of God, who is the Bread of Life! Amen.

If you’ve ever made a cross-country road-trip, you’ve undoubtedly heard of a place called Wall Drug Store. Though it’s located in tiny Wall, South Dakota (population – 800) this little business starts advertising its distant presence while you’re at least a dozen states away. Especially on interstate 90 somewhere around Idaho to the West and Wisconsin to the east, strange little signs start popping up every couple hundred miles: “Only 1,314 miles to Wall Drug.” Or “Just 529 more miles and you’ll be at Wall Drug.” Even in remote areas like Canaan Valley, West Virginia, a sign is tacked up outside the local general store and gas station proclaiming that “Wall Drug” is only 1813 miles from where you stand. There is, believe it or not, a Wall Drug sign at the South Pole, and another at the North Pole.

I have to admit that I’ve never actually been to Wall Drug. But it sure isn’t because of their lack of trying or a lack in advertising. Wall Drug has over 3000 billboards and signs letting people like me know how close I had come to that roadside Mecca. These signs don’t tell you why you should stop. You’re supposed to stop and see the place, just to say you have.


Apparently, the crowd of people who followed Jesus from one side of the Sea of Galilee to the other would have been great fans of Wall Drug. They love signs! They had just been the recipients of one of Jesus’ most astonishing miracles…all five thousand of them had been fed to fullness with just five loaves and two fish. But that was yesterday. Today they clamor for more signs…or at least, more bread.

Jesus refuses to do more tricks for the crowd. Jesus declines to whip up a new batch of bread on demand. He knows this crowd is looking only for they kind of signs they can hold in their hands and place in their mouths.

The problem is that this crowd thinks the signs are the be-all and end-all. They forgot why God provided signs for their ancestors in the first place. God provided signs like the pillar of fire, or the bread from heaven, not to impress the people, but to point towards something else they needed to know, or to follow. Actually, we’re not all that different from the Jews who tracked down Jesus. Do you remember in the news a couple of years ago the people who were convinced that the image of Mother Theresa had appeared in a cinnamon roll? Seriously! “It’s a sign…it’s a sign!” they said. A sign of what? It’s not a sign if it doesn’t point to something. Or how about the “miracle” that’s been in the papers in the last couple of weeks. People are in awe of a small, 2-foot long alligator. If you look carefully, you can just make out the word “God” in its scales. “G…O…D…” Yeah, I suppose it’s there. “It’s a sign, a sign!” people say. A sign of what? It’s not a sign if it doesn’t point to something.

We’ve all done the same kind of searching for signs. I spent a long time wrestling with whether God was calling me to ordained ministry. I had completed the necessary education, but wasn’t sure if it was really where God was calling me…and, to be honest, I was comfortable with what I was doing. I was waiting for the big sign. The skywriting from God; the scroll dropped out of the sky…the sign. I wasn’t paying attention to my friends and colleagues who were encouraging me to be ordained…who were saying that they believed this was what God was calling me to do. I was looking for what God was saying to me…and was ignoring what God was saying to me. I would have fit in great with the crowd that surrounded Jesus.

Like today, in Jesus’ day, the people looked for signs and miracles. But Jesus tells them not to be wowed by signs, but to seek substance; the bread he gives is not intended as a sign, it is intended as a gift that sustains life. And beyond the simple gift of bread, the Son of Man will give them the gift that never spoils; is never wholly consumed and that never runs out…the gift of forgiveness, and of eternal life. To receive this gift, Jesus reveals, doesn’t require a sign. It is a pure gift.

Signs and miracles are thick around us. But there will never be enough signs until there is faith. And real faith doesn’t need signs because real faith is based on a relationship, not on evidence. And that relationship is with Jesus. God’s greatest sign, God’s greatest miracle, isn’t a symbol; it is a person.

Ultimately, the greatest need we have is not for more signs…not for more miracles. It is for a relationship with the living Christ. And Jesus Christ is saying that it is our relationship with Him that brings life. Humans are wired to need relationships. We are relational people. We need a relationship with God…we need relationships with each other. Relationships are “bread” to us…a basic…a staple of life, a fundamental need.

I believe this to be true now more than any other in history.

Unless you’ve been hiding out in an unplugged concrete bunker for the last few years, you know that the biggest ratings grabbers on television are so-called “reality TV shows.” America’s newest favorite guilty pleasure is reality TV. There isn’t a night left that you can’t tune in a bachelor, a bachelorette, a wannabe millionaire, a wannabe singing sensation, a house full of has-been stars, or a house full of overhyped college students on a hormone rampage, all trying to establish some kind of relationship with someone else. It might be a shot at fame and fortune, as in the American Idol series. Or it might be a conniving alliance against someone else, as in the Survivor or Big Brother shows.

I don’t think this is your or my reality…I’m not sure whose reality it is supposed to be. If reality TV is anything, it is mis-named. But there is something we can learn from it.

These shows, regardless of their plot, all revolve around who can establish the most successful relationships; the relationships with (or against) each other, the relationships with the judges, and ultimately the relationship with you as the audience.

But no matter how mind-numbing, bizarre or insulting we find these shows, the church needs to sit up and take notice of them for they are themselves a sign of our times. The sign they’re giving?

People are desperate not for more signs, but for relationships.

We’re a remote-controlled, security-fenced, internet-commuting, hyper-busy society. We’re increasingly cut off from genuine experiences and expressions of community. “Drive-thru’s” can outpace sit-down restaurants; we can have our groceries delivered right to our door to avoid the crowds; we even can “pay at the pump” and completely avoid social interaction. Sociologists have observed that starting with the suburban building booms in the sixties and seventies, we build our homes in different ways than in the past; ways that cut down on opportunities for relationships. In rural, smaller towns, the most prominent thing you see when you look at someone’s home is the front porch. These homes were designed so that people could sit there and interact with their neighbors as they walked by on the sidewalk.

Now, most of our neighborhoods don’t even have sidewalks, and when you look at a home the most prominent feature you see is the garage where people enter and exit without having to step outside. You hit the switch, drive in and close the door behind you; the front porch has been renamed the “deck” and has been moved to the back, behind the privacy fence or the shrubbery. Of course, in our Minnesota climate, we’re not helped by the fact that we can go months without seeing our neighbors unless it’s waving at them while we shovel or snowblow.

Big business has noticed this phenomenon. Theologian and writer Leonard Sweet once interviewed the CEO of Starbuck’s and asked him “how do you get away with charging almost $4 for a cup of coffee?” The CEO smiled and answered, “Starbuck’s doesn’t sell coffee. Starbuck’s sells the experience.” He’s right. Starbuck’s, and the other coffee chains, don’t sell coffee, they sell the front porch. It is a place to gather, to build relationships and to talk. And if the price is a $4 cup of coffee, people, (myself included…I’m on a first-named basis with most of the coffee shop employees in Maple Grove) we will gladly pay it. We are that starved for relationships.

I was driving home Tuesday night and was reminded on the radio that it was “National Night Out.” The radio commentator said that the purpose of National Night Out was to get people together in the front of their homes to get to know each other. Neighbor relationships have now become so rare and scattered that we have to select a single night each year to focus on them. Once upon a time, everyone was out in front of their homes all the time. National Night Out was every night.

Now I don’t mean to sound like I’m just ripping on progress, or technology, or home architecture, or anything like that; far from it. And I’m not sitting up here pining for days gone by…I know that “The Andy Griffith Show” wasn’t “reality TV” any more than “American Idol” or “The Real World” is. But these changes in our society point toward something that we in the church need to take notice of.

In a culture awash in false relationships, in a culture looking to TV shows to teach us how to do relationships, the church is needed more than ever to be a sign of true and authentic relationships. Jesus spoke about the greatest sign God had given, the gift of the Son. The miracle of establishing a living, breathing, saving relationship with the one who offers us eternal life…this was a relationship as basic and essential to living a true life as bread was to keeping the body alive. Our relationship with Jesus is all about substance, not about signs.

No wonder Jesus calls himself the Bread of Life. The relationships between the Son and the world are just as essential and just as life sustaining. Every culture has some sort of bread that represents the basic sustenance of life. Whether it’s with manna, a tortilla, pita-pockets or bowls of rice, breadfruit or wonderbread…every culture recognizes the importance of bread. Jesus did not randomly choose the image of “bread of life” when describing himself. Jesus did not randomly choose bread as one of the central elements of the sacrament. And it is within this sacrament that we come into closest contact with the Holy…with the relationship that brings us life.

People of God, we are surrounded by signs and miracles of God’s presence. But God does not call us to follow signs and miracles. People spend far too much time arguing about whether something is a sign from God or not. Signs and miracles are not the be-all and end-all of our faith. Like the Wall Drug signs that dot the landscape, the signs God gives exist to point the way towards something far greater. They direct us toward a God who comes to us seeking a relationship.

In present tense, Jesus looks you in the eye and says “I want to be in relationship with you, and I want you to be in relationship with each other.” This is a relationship that brings life, grace and forgiveness to you. I believe that if God has a vision for the church…for our church, it is to reclaim our role as the front porch for a world and a community that is desperately looking for a place to gather and to be in relationships with each other. Whether it is in worship, in a small group, in a learning opportunity, or over a cookie in Fellowship Hall in just a few minutes, God calls us to make this place a place where relationships happen; with God…with each other.

Don’t go chasing false idols…don’t spend your time honoring unhealthy relationships…don’t stop when you see the sign. Look to what the sign points at. It points at a Savior who seeks you out…who looks for you like a shepherd looks for a lost sheep…who wants to be in a relationship with you. It will be a relationship that brings abundant life, which brings forgiveness and love. It is grace, and it is for you.
Amen.